What your local librarian is reading…

Anna and the French Kiss

After reading Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins, I now want to move to Paris. Before reading this book, I never even wanted to visit France, and now I want to live there. Maybe it’s just the phenomenal writing of Ms. Perkins, but she makes living in Paris seem like the greatest thing in the world, and I find that my boring, humble life in small-town America just can’t compete. I wonder if there’s a librarian-exchange program I can look into…something to think about.

Anna and the French Kiss is an absolutely wonderful book, and I’m so glad that other bloggers led me to it. It’s honestly not something I would have picked up on my own, so thanks to those who gave it such rave reviews and got me interested (particularly Kiersten White, author of Paranormalcy and blogger at http://kierstenwrites.blogspot.com/). I was hooked from the first page, and only my need for sleep made me stop reading last night. Anna and the French Kiss had a beautiful setting, relatable characters, witty dialogue, and hot guys with even hotter accents. What more could a girl want?

Anna is a senior this year. She’s been looking forward to her last hurrah in her Atlanta high school, but her dad, a famous (and somewhat pretentious) novelist, has other ideas. He’s decided that she should spend her last year of high school at a boarding school in Paris. Now, this might make most girls giddy, but Anna? Not so much. She wasn’t even given a choice in the matter, and now she has to leave everything she’s known to live in a country where she’ll struggle just to communicate.

Well, things may not be as bad as Anna had feared. Of course, most of the people around her speak English. (She is going to a school for rich American kids, after all.) Almost immediately, she makes friends with Meredith, her next door neighbor and soccer player; Josh and Rashmi, a couple that fights almost as much as they make out; and Etienne St. Clair, probably the hottest guy she’s ever seen in her life. (It doesn’t hurt that he has a charming British accent.) Sparks fly between Anna and Etienne from the start. There’s just one problem. He’s got a girlfriend–a very serious girlfriend. Anna can’t help the way she feels about Etienne, but she knows there’s no hope for a relationship beyond simply being friends (especially since Meredith has a crush on Etienne, too).

Soon, though, it becomes clear that things are not all sunshine and roses for Etienne and his girlfriend. And Etienne is spending a lot of time with Anna. Long looks. Glancing touches. Intense conversations. Would he be doing these things if he wasn’t at least a little interested? But what about the girlfriend? Could Etienne ever leave her and really be with Anna? Time after time, Anna thinks it could happen, but circumstances–the illness of Etienne’s mother, Anna’s own boy troubles at home and school, comments from friends and enemies alike–always seem to get in the way. How can Anna land the guy of her dreams in the most romantic city in the world? Well, you’ll just have to read Anna and French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins to find out!

I cannot say enough that I adored this book. It is awesome, and you should read it. I’m looking forward to the next book by Stephanie Perkins, Lola and the Boy Next Door, which is scheduled for release in September of this year. You should definitely pop over to the author’s website, http://www.stephanieperkins.com/, for more information. Her writing on the website is just as witty as the writing in her books (and that is saying something).